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UPDATE: Shooting 'a wake-up call' for law enforcement

B.C. Kowalski
5:52 p.m. CDT August 29, 2014

Plover Police Officer Jim Decker, a trainer for his department, demonstrates approaching a vehicle, being careful to approach the vehicle from behind the driver’s side door to minimize danger. The officer-involved shooting in Plover has put officers on high alert.(Photo: B.C. Kowalski/Stevens Point Journal Media)

PLOVER – Only one officer was involved in an Aug. 8 shooting in Plover, but its effects have rippled throughout Portage County's law enforcement community.

Plover Police Officer Andrew Hopfensperger pulled 33-year-old Manawa resident Brett Lieberman's car over at 6:53 p.m. Aug. 8 after seeing Lieberman driving erratically on Highway 54 traveling west toward Plover. After Lieberman's car stopped, police say Lieberman immediately jumped out of the vehicle and came at Hopfensperger with a knife drawn, according to a news release from Plover. Hopfensperger shot him with his handgun, and Lieberman was taken to a hospital, according to police.

Many details about the incident still are unknown to the public. The Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigations is investigating the shooting and the Plover Police Department is conducting its own investigation, and neither is saying much about the case. Hopfensperger remains on administrative leave while the investigations continue.

“It raises more awareness. We have a job to do. You’re always aware of it, but the closer it happens to home, the more aware you are that it could happen here.”

Portage County Sheriff John Charewicz

But the shooting has local law enforcement on high alert.

"It's a wake-up call," said Plover Police Chief Dwayne Wierzba.

Rippling effects

Stevens Point Officer Jeremy Mueller was working the night of Aug. 8. Word spread quickly between all law enforcement agencies about the Plover shooting.

Every officer on duty that night likely had the same thought Mueller had: that could have been me.

"For at least a dozen traffic stops since then, that thought runs through my head," Mueller said. In week after the shooting, Mueller said he approached vehicles with even more caution than normal.

Plover Officer Jim Decker said the shooting is cause for reflection. Decker is one of Plover's training officers; he teaches defense and arrest tactics, vehicle contacts and firearms training.

"What I'm concerned about is I don't want anyone I trained to be injured or hurt as a result of my having failed them as a trainer," Decker said. "I want the training to have been there for them."

A rare event

Part of the shock is that officer-involved shootings don't happen often in Portage County. August's shooting was Plover's first in the 29 years Wierzba has worked at the department, he said.

The Stevens Point Police Department has only had one shooting in the past 20 years, according to records provided by the department. Portage County Sheriff John Charewicz said he could think of three incidents: one in 2009, another in 2001, and one in the early 1990s. The Portage County Sheriff's Office denied a Stevens Point Journal Media records request for exact information about the number of and information about officer-involved shootings by Sheriff's Office deputies.

Charewicz said officers are affected when any law enforcement officer is injured or killed in the line of duty, or involved in a shooting.

"It raises more awareness," Charewicz said. "We have a job to do. You're always aware of it, but the closer it happens to home, the more aware you are that it could happen here."

Stevens Point Police Assistant Police Chief Tom Zenner said officers can sometimes get lulled into a routine, but a situation such as this snaps officers back to the harsh reality of their line of work.

"When an officer is involved in a situation like that, it makes it much more real," Zenner said.

B.C. Kowalski can be reached at 715-345-2251. Find him on Twitter as @BCreporter.